« Modern Gibson PAF's »

The PAF is a classic pickup. It was the first humbucking pickup and was invented by Seth Lover in the mid 50s. The PAF stands for Patent Applied For. Gibson could not wait for the patent to be approved before selling the pickup because they knew anyone could go look at the patent and steal their design so right after they applied for the patent they started selling them with that name. This was good because it took a few years for the patent to get approved and by then they were some of the most popular pickups in the market. There are plenty of pickups that say they are PAF relicas. Every passive pickup maker makes one pretty much. The Gibson ones are the closest modern mass produced pickups today that are close to the original PAF. Seymour Duncan makes some special aged PAF style pickups but these are pretty much custom jobs. The 57 Classic is probably the best pickup that Gibsons come with nowadays.. The 57's have just the right amount of sag in the tone so you can really work the dynamics like you would with a set of real vintage pickups. In the neck position is super smooth and when you throw in some tone knob you can get that sour tone like you have a parked wah on. In the bridge position it has a little more bite and spank to it. With some gain you can get good classic rock tones from the bridge pickup. These pickups can handle more gain than a set of PAF's could. Because of their modern design they retain their composure longer than a set of old pickups could. If you have a humbucker guitar and want a really classic sound from it. You can go directly to the source and get some real life PAF's from Gibson in the form of the Classic 57.